Business Continuity Management > Learn about Recovery and Exercise Management

[Mary Hain]

Overview

You can use exercises to make sure that your organization’s teams are prepared for a disruption.  Exercises help teams identify gaps in recovery strategies and plans and trigger suggestions for corrective actions. With continuous testing, continuity plans can improve and evolve to support the organization’s changing needs.  

You can conduct two types of exercises, with simulations providing greater assurance that your plans are designed for your organization.

• Table-top exercises: Conduct a virtual or in-person tabletop exercise. SMEs from different functions meet to discuss, document, and identify the effectiveness of plans and suggest the best corrective actions.
• Functional exercises: Conduct simulations of real-life crisis events. The team develops a plan to test the continuity plans in the field. This involves preparing the recovery teams to test the plans in a simulation setup. Feedback is gathered to improve future planning.

🆕 New in Zurich: MS Word Report Builder: Export BIAs, business continuity plans, events, and exercises as Word documents using customizable templates—so you can create reports that match your organization's format and requirements, not just static PDFs.

Demos

• Zurich release:  MS Word reporting capabilities for simplified reporting (coming soon).
• Business Continuity Management Overview provides a short demo of the Recovery Mgmt.  features of BCM starting at 11:28)
• Manage Recovery with ServiceNow Business Continuity Management
• For additional BCM demos, check out our demo library.

Resources

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• Now Create BCM Process Guide - Provides detailed guidance on the way that ServiceNow intends the process to work for Business Continuity Management. (p.17)
• Product Documentation – Recovery and Exercise Management
• BCM Community Forum

FAQ

What is the purpose of exercises in Business Continuity Management (BCM)?

Exercises are used for continuous testing and improvement of continuity plans, helping to keep them up to date and enhance their effectiveness in real crisis situations.

What are the key steps involved in creating an exercise?

The BCM program manager creates an exercise, adds details (e.g., asset, plan, event task), submits the event task for approval, and reviews/approves the exercise before moving it to the Archived state. Depending on the program's maturity, organizations can undertake tabletop exercises, functional exercises, or full-scale exercises to test the efficacy of their business continuity plans.

How does a BCM program manager create an exercise in the Business Continuity Workspace?

The program manager can create an exercise by navigating to the Exercises tab on the Home page or the List view and selecting "Create exercise" or "New" in the Exercises records.

What happens after an exercise is approved?

After approval, the exercise moves to the Approved state and eventually transitions to the Archived state later.

Can the BCM program manager generate a report after an exercise for future reference?

A BCM program manager can generate a PDF of the exercise details and save it for future reference.

Where can BCM program managers manage exercises?

BCM program managers can manage exercises in the BCM UI Builder Workspace, either through the Home page or the List view in the Exercises records.